Growing this Wiki

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty | Table of Contents Help this Wiki grow Integrate full text with Wiki "In certain ways, a wiki is of course the ideal format for such a project, allowing as it does for multiple, collaborative authorship and a relatively boundless expansion. But the wiki seems also to maintain a separation between the primary text and its related paratexts -- here are the static PDFs from which the author speaks, and here are the malleable wiki pages on which readers chime in. How might we imagine bringing those voices into closer conversation?" * Kathleen Fitzpatrick [1] For this to be truly useful, the full text of the book should be integrated with the wiki. Let's put the book's theories into practice. Some of the text is now available on this wiki: Acknowledgments, Chapter 1, Bulleted Chapter 1, Part One, Chapter 2 and Chapter 9 Non-editable pages in a wiki The issue of full integration with a wiki version of the full text does, however, raises some methodological issues concerning wiki spaces and published documents, as there would appear to be a legitimate need to maintain a true copy - with "protected" pages - of the original text that would however allow the inclusion of Wiki links - i.e. for concepts, people, etc. A protected page can only be edited by someone with administrative privileges. Ideally, there would be - and perhaps there is - a way of giving limited administrative privilege that to would allow users who have agreed to limit editing of the original text to the addition of Wiki links. The use of protected pages would also be of value in a number of other contexts, including in Wikipedia and the broader context of access to knowledge, and would allow, for example, the inclusion of the text of global agreements, conventions, treaties, etc, to be embedded in a Wiki environment without jeopardizing the integrity of the document. Use of illustrations It would be great to have the book's illustrations available for commentary. The illustrations are now available as remote images, through use of their URLs, as the file upload feature is currently disabled for this Wiki space. If you want to add other illustrations, you need to have the images posted on a different site. Ease of reading Difficult sentences I have just started reading that book and I found many sentences that I have difficulties with understanding. In the spirit of 'peer production' I am thinking about recording a list of such sentences here so that editors of the future version of the book could ease the readers work. Would there be a value in such a list? Here are some examples: p18 "My own emphasis is on the specific relative roles of market and nonmarket sectors, and how that change anchors the radical decentralization that he too observes, as a matter of sociological observation." (what change?) From the context, this appears to be a small error of omission, that should have read: "My own emphasis is on the specific change in relative roles of market and nonmarket sectors, and how that change anchors the radical decentralization that he too observes, as a matter of sociological observation." p21 "given that I subject to similar criticism rules styled by their proponents as “property”" p29 "High-volume mechanical presses and the telegraph combined with new business practices to change newspapers from small-circulation local efforts into mass media." (what is the predicate here?) Zby: Yochai is using the word "combined" as a past-tense verb. The presses and the telegraph are subjects of the sentence. "combined with new..." is the predicate. - Ady Ady: I do believe that those sentences do have sense - but still if others would have to stumble upon them and need to stop to think about their meaning then perhaps it would be useful to edit them. It all depends how many other readers would have similar difficulties as mine. -- Zby In the acknowledgments section, Yochai Benkler confesses to a tendency towards "excessively long sentences". Given the significance of the book, considerations of ease of comprehension - with a particular concern for those whose native language is not English - would appear worthy of attention. p120 "As these conditions change, the relative scope for social-sharing practices to play a role in production changes." (scope to play role - somehow awkward) p126 "Instead, managers must be able to identify patterns that emerge in the community and inspire trust that they are correctly judging the patterns that are valuable from the perspective of the users, not only the enterprise, so that the users in fact coalesce around and extend these patterns." Long paragraphs Related to this, many of the paragraphs could reasonably be characterized as excessively long, and include weighty sentences with the result that there may well be a good number of prospective readers who find The Wealth of Network somewhat difficult to digest in its original format. Bulleted chapters By providing distinctive paragraph breaks and double-spacing between sentences, and adding as many levels of outline bullets as suggest themselves, the books seems to be much easier to read. See, for example, Bulleted Chapter 1 Contributing / participating Perhaps this should be first on the list, as the surest way for the Wiki to grow is for each of us to contribute to this Wiki - and to invite friends and colleagues - including those who have not yet discovered the joys of Wiki work - to join in the process. Remember, as noted in the book, the power of a network is a function of the square of the number of nodes. Use of Wiki Features There are many different ways to participate in a Wiki space. Become familiar with the different types of Wiki pages and find those areas in which you are most comfortable participating. Community portal Contribute your thoughts, ideas and observations on this evolving Wiki community on the Community portal page. Share some information about the networked information communities with which you are involved Discussion pages If you want to respond to any of the pages in this Wiki, you can click on the Discussion link for the page. User pages Edit your own User page, and tell the Wealth of Network community something about who you are, your experiences in a networked information economy / society, and why you are participating in this Wiki. User talk pages When you notice a contribution of particular interest, you may want to make a comment on the contribution in the contributor's User Talk page Help If you are an experienced Wiki worker. please help develop the Help page If you are in need of help on how to use this Wiki space, add your request for help or question(s), under the Frequently asked questions section of the Help page Wiki cross-pollination Cross-posting with other Wiki spaces Yale Access to Knowledge Conference [2] The Wealth of Networks @ Wikipedia [3] Please add links to other related Wiki spaces Spread the word Blog this wiki While Wiki space can be uniquely valuable in compiling and integrating a wealth of inormation, blogs tend to be among the most effective tools in spreading the word on key developments in cyberspace. Share your responses to The Wealth of Networks in your blog - and don't forget to include a link back to this site. Email lists Email lists remain the simplest way to share information among friends and colleagues. Share information on The Wealth of Networks and this Wiki space with one or more of the email lists that you subscribe to. Watch this wiki grow Revisit this wiki from time to time, and check on the Recent changes page to see which pages have been changed or added since you last visited. Be creative Think outside the box of perspectives learned in an industrial, print-based information economy with an unsustainable - and devastating - appetite for trees, and enter into a universe in which knowledge is the source and currency of wealth, and can be freely shared and expressed. Re-read the Epigraph from John Stuart Mill, On Liberty for inspiration and to reflect on how the "inward forces' that guide you can best find expression here. Look to your Muses. John Stuart Mill, On Liberty | Table of Contents